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A group of 10 community banks, including Reading Cooperative Bank and Southbridge-based Savers Bank, has partnered with a Connecticut financial technology company to launch an open payments network that the banks say will benefit consumers and community banks.

The payments network, called “Chuck,” was developed through Alloy Labs Alliance, a consortium of more than 50 community and midsized banks. Alloy Labs, which has a partnership with the American Bankers Association, selected Glastonbury, Connecticut-based digital payments company Payrailz to launch the network.

The open payments network lets consumers and businesses use their current bank’s mobile or desktop app to send money to a recipient, who then chooses where the payment is delivered, including to some popular payment networks, Alloy Labs said in a statement.

“This network establishes a holistic approach to delivering personalized payments for consumers and businesses in a differentiated, cost-effective way,” Alloy Labs said. “With the introduction of CHUCK, financial institutions now have a choice when it comes to providing instant payment capabilities and no longer must settle for a more expensive, restrictive, and closed network.”

The network will be made available to all U.S.-based banks, the statement said.

Alloy Labs said Reading Cooperative Bank President and CEO Julieann Thurlow was instrumental in leading the payments network launch.

“This is a network for community banks, by community banks,” Thurlow said in the statement. “The first product we are launching is an innovative approach to peer-to-peer (P2P) payments. We have an extensive roadmap of applications that will provide community banks with the fast, flexible infrastructure they need to remain competitive over the long term.”

John Schulte, chief information officer at Mercantile Bank of Michigan, said the consortium chose Payrailz because of its technology, as well as the company’s strategic and cultural alignment.

In addition to Reading Cooperative, Savers Bank and Mercantile Bank of Michigan, consortium members involved with the launch of Chuck include Morrisville, Vermont-based Union Bank and banks in California, Iowa, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

“Alloy Labs and Payrailz are working together to drive innovation and change for community banking and this partnership will help propel the industry forward,” Fran Duggan, CEO of Payrailz, said in the statement. “This partnership dispels the myth that community banks can’t be tech-forward.”

Jason Henrichs, CEO of Alloy Labs Alliance, told Banker & Tradesman earlier this year that community banks looking for new technology often search for the best vendor but should instead define the problem that needs to be solved and then let that problem drive a technology partnership.

Big banks and credit unions have long histories of taking a shared approach to technology solutions. Approaching innovation strategy through a consortium lets banks have input in products being developed, Henrichs said, while they also learn from how other banks use technology.

“Partnering with a group … is a way for [banks] to leverage each other’s strengths to what they’re doing,” Henrichs said. “The problem isn’t finding startups; the problem is figuring out the right operating model once [banks find] them.”